eGrades TA Access Rights for Grading

Owned by Sara Cook
Last updated: Aug 07, 2023 by Francesca Palermino
3 min read

TA Access Rights are attributes that control Teaching Assistants' access levels to courses in eGrades and are managed by the Department Advisor through the eGrades platform.

TA Access Rights Overview

The TA Access Rights attribute is the hierarchy, regardless of the TA's assigned function code and proxy.

The 2 possible attributes are:

  • 'View Only'

  • 'Can enter/edit grades prior to instructor submit'

When a new course is offered on campus, the TA Access rights for that particular course defaults to the attribute 'View Only' and can be changed to 'Can enter/edit grades prior to instructor submit' by the department advisor or someone in the department who has an eGrades grading coordinator, department chair, or department vice chair role. When a new course is MCA approved in the catalog, it is helpful for the advisors to change the TA Access rights to an editable attribute immediately so that the TAs can upload and save grades for the instructor-in-charge to submit during the grade submission period. Once this attribute is changed for a course, it remains in the changed status indefinitely until either the course is cancelled in the MCA or the department changes the attribute back to 'View Only'. If a course is taught for a period of time then has a cancel date in the MCA, it may be reactivated at a later time but the TA attribute will always default back to 'View Only' if there is a new start date in the MCA.

The attributes are intended to allow departments to designate which courses allow TAs to assist with grading. Teaching assistants will not have the ability to edit grades prior to the instructor submitting, unless the course TA Access Rights has the attribute 'Can enter/edit grades prior to instructor submit'. If a TA is assigned to a course in STAR, they will have the ability to download classlists, view students, and view grades, but the grade entry box will be inactive, unless the attribute is marked as 'Can enter/edit grades prior to instructor submit'. The course will then be editable by TAs in any future quarter up until the department either removes the course from the editable list or cancels it in the MCA.

If a TA does not have edit rights, they cannot lock the gradebook, meaning that they cannot prevent other users from accessing the gradebook while they have it open.

Locating the TA Access Rights Attribute

The attribute text can be found on the upper righthand side of the course gradebook in eGrades under the heading titled 'TA Access Rights'

Changing the TA Access Rights Attribute

(from 'View Only' to 'Can enter/edit grades prior to instructor submit') 

  1. The TA needs to be added under the course on the STAR C screen with the appropriate Instructor Function Code and DSIR-ID.

  2. Open eGrades and click on the 'TA Administration' tab.

  3. Select the department of the course from the 'Dept' drop-down menu on the top of the screen.

  4. Locate the course under the 'Approved Master Course List' column (left side) and click on it. To select multiple courses, hold the 'Ctrl' key and click on each one so that all courses are highlighted.

  5. Click the 'Add >>>' button between the two columns so that the course is also added to the 'Courses 'Editable' by TAs' column (right side).

This action only needs to be performed once; the course will retain the selected access indefinitely until manually changed. 

Once the course has been added to the 'Courses 'Editable' by TAs' column, you will be able to open the course gradebook and see that the text under the 'TA Access Rights' heading has changed to 'Can enter/edit grades prior to instructor submit'. This means that the TAs of the course can upload and save grades prior to the instructor reviewing and submitting them.

Questions and Technical Support

Please email egrades@sa.ucsb.edu